*Siri*
I’ve been trying really hard to use Siri on my iPhone more often, especially with all of the improvements that came along with the new iOS 7. For those unfamiliar with a Siri, it is the voice controlled “personal assistant” that is suppose to do some nifty things like play music, read your tweets and launch apps, all with voice commands.
I just asked Siri to read me my appointments tomorrow. She started out good, reading my calendar up until lunch time. However, at lunch she paused and asked, “shall I continue?” I responded in the affirmative. And she started up again, but from the beginning of the day, reading me the appointments she had just told me about.
I went through this fun loop four times before I realized she just couldn’t get beyond lunch.
Earlier this evening, when using her voice to call out directions from Apple Maps, she developed a new trick: on two separate occasions on the NJ 17 freeway near Mahwah she had us exit the roadway, go to the end of the exit ramp, do a U-turn around the median and then head back up the ramp to resume right where we left off on NJ 17. The frustration level in the Jeep leaped exponentially and when I pulled over to see what she was drinking and to make sure we were headed the right way (we,were), she then had us weave across the NJ-NY state line a few times and go northeast when we should have been going southeast before she was dismissed and replaced by Google Maps, who took us the 1.7 miles to Earl’s hotel for the evening.
This prompted an outburst of my frustration on Twitter where I declared that Apple sucks, the whole “it just works” mantra is a fallacy and any sort of quality control from Apple died with Steve Jobs. Angry Apple fanboys bombarded me with messages and I gave them the finger.
Apple just ain’t cutting it anymore. I have to beg and plead with Siri every morning to give me the weather. She only takes requests about 40% of the time. I think it’s something to do with the networking, but our home is pure Apple and if Apple can’t get their devices to do what they’re suppose to do on their own hardware and under their own software, then all the gold Kardashian phones out there polluting up good sensibilities is nothing more than lipstick on a pig.
Right now I want to jump ship to something else but I can’t because Android is more schizophrenic than Congress with the varying devices and versions and the like. God knows what Microsoft is doing these days but I suspect they’re trying to affix a mouse to the side of a phone because that’s the opposite of what everyone else is doing.
The fact of the matter is that quality control in the tech world is dropping like a guy with cement shoes in the Hudson and I don’t see it coming up for air anytime soon.
I want something that works reliably. I want something that is production ready. I want something that is easy to use, uses technology in a smart way and is available to me without pleading, cajoling or having to give the damn thing a biscuit.
Maybe I’m too much of a perfectionist. I won’t apologize for that, though. I refuse to subscribe to mediocrity.
Someone tell me about their perfect mobile computing experience. Quick.
Apple services, especially predictive ones where google excels, suck. Thankfully bare minimum iCloud works well. That’s the one I depend on a lot.
Thing is, there’s no point in trying so hard to make Siri work. It’s ok but Google is leaps and bounds ahead and I don’t see that changing soon. Analogy is going to Hawaii and cussing and stressing because snow experience on beach sucks. Or because mcdonalds doesn’t do healthy well. I always double check unknown destinations on google maps and navigon, and if apple maps works, I use to hopefully give apple servers more data.
Ultimately it’s not worth the stress. People think I’m an apple fanboy because I don’t complain much, but I really like to think that I’m making intelligent choice where I’m aware of strengths and weakness and what strengths I need and I’m sync with the most. Knowing weaknesses, I don’t feel disappointed. It’d be different if phone would refuse to boot up or would crash all the time – that’s the bad issue. Sure, it’d be nice if apple services were up to par with google, but there must be some threshold for error and growing pains. I have yet in my life to see a perfect product. It’s about picking which one works best for us. And then we get to be pleasantly suprised with evolution. Like last Adobe Photoshop *finally* loading up super fast.
I completely agree with you that users should make intelligent choices as to what services and systems work for them and that Apple devices are no different in that regard, however, Apple is always touting itself as the “it’s just works” experience and the fact of the matter is, 50% of the time it doesn’t just work.
Apple hardware is still best in class. I really like OS X Mavericks and I’m looking forward to its release. However, Apple likes to keep their users in their walled garden and they make it kind of hard for users to use alternate applications, even though they did suggest other mapping apps. The fact that the Map app icon is right there, front and center, when they know it’s awful rubs me the wrong way.
And Siri. Poor Siri. It has so many possibilities. The thing that irritates me the most about Siri is that I am using all Apple devices – iPhone, iPad, OS X, Airport Extreme, Airport Expresses, the works, and my iPhone struggles with network connectivity (yes, I’ve reset everything) when I move from hotspot to hotspot or from mobile data to a hotspot. Going in and out of airplane mode helps it along, but I shouldn’t have do that.
If Apple can’t write its software to work on its own hardware properly, then they have an internal issue somewhere. Linux and Windows are written to run on an infinite combination of hardware platforms, Apple shouldn’t struggle with getting things working on their finite set of hardware offerings.
Good news about the switching networks – Apple is working on it, and it’s not as simple as I thought it’d be – it seems that it also requires server support for multipath: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/multipath-tcp-lets-siri-seamlessly-switch-between-wi-fi-and-3glte/
As for Apple claiming that it just works, it was honest when Siri was beta, but now, that’s just advertising. I’m talking about the advertising where McDonalds food looks like most delicious and wholesome until one tries it. Given that Siri takes 3+ seconds to respond when servers are not (too often) overwhelmed, it’s unreasonable to trust whatever ads claim that that will change overnight.
I’m more understanding about maps, though – Google Maps was *the* maps until Google went greedy with ads and tracking demands. Apple had to start from zero, and at least they were humble to say “look, our maps aren’t best, you have these alternatives”. I’m seeing “walled garden” experience from Google Maps: I can’t even use history or contacts unless I sign in to my Google Account. Very coy way of forcing users to their ecosystem, where they get monetized product.
Insert “perfect mobile computing experience” here: *crickets*
I don’t use Siri, mostly because my day/life is fairly… routine. That, and talking to my mobile still isn’t up to the par of what I expect thanks to Star Trek: TNG.